Merlin enters into pan-Asian deal with KKBOX

Asian streaming platform KKBOX has inked a partnership with Merlin, an independent digital rights agency. As a result of the deal, some of the 20,000 independent labels and distributors represented by Merlin will be featured on the Taiwan-based streaming service. The deal covers Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan.

This arrangement marks the first pan-Asian specific deal for Merlin, but not it’s first relationship with a streaming service. It entered a partnership with Pandora that enabled the online radio platform to sign its first direct record-label deal. Merlin also did successfully reach a deal with YouTube that helped pave the way for the Music Key service currently in beta. Merlin appears to be taking the approach of custom deals as a path to getting its members onto the world’s listening platforms.